Pregame: Illinois vs Houston, Thursday, March 26th, 9:05pm CT, TBS

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#52      
Emerson Bigguns
CleverHandle1 said:
I would hope this wouldn't be the case. You really think this is the only chance Illinois has?
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Our offense results in a lot of 3’s. We can’t have a terrible shooting night and beat Houston, but we won’t need to do something out of this world to pull it off.
As long as we don’t play poorly, we will be right there at the end.
 
#54      
Doogie94
Is there an Illini ticket exchange? I'm looking for 1 for sure, possibly 2.
 
#55      
bdutts
PTPerUniversity said:
Houston lost to Tennessee, Texas Tech, and Tre White.

They have a small team playing 5 guys almost the entire game. They're athletic but play at a similar pace as the Illini.

They're very good, but they're not a juggernaut. Size and depth can beat a team like this. Let's do it.
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They are as mentally and physically tough as any team we played this year. Maybe more. No one is a juggernaut but if we sleepwalk though a half, Houston will bury us. And it’s a home game for them.
 
#58      
OrangeBlue98
CleverHandle1 said:
I could be wrong here, but is it fair to say VCU's intensity is very similar to Houston's? I'd say, "yes."

Now, Houston has more talent, so that's obvious. However, this Illinois team matched the intensity tonight and blew them out of the building.

This was definitely a great tune-up for the next game. Illinois will now know what to expect.

Is Houston great offensively this year? I may be wrong, but I don't thing they're that great.

I believe Vegas may have Houston as a two-point favorite. To me, that's a pick 'em.
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I’ve watched a number of Houston games living in Big 12 country. They are great defensively, and they are better offensively. But they still have a number of times where they go ice cold for long stretches. I’ve seen it too often where they not only can’t score, but they don’t look like they know what they are doing offensively.

I don’t know if Illinois can lock down defensively enough to get that type of cold spell. But if they can, Illinois can absolutely win.

Underwood also has to start talking about how Houston fouls so much. Need to take a page from the Lute Olson playbook and plant that seed early.
 
#59      
fatboyslim
There playing at rice
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Not an excuse. It's literally on their campus. This shouldn't happen at all. The committee could have put them in any of the other 3 regions.
 
#60      
Illiniguy13
illinidday89 said:
I think the one chance we have against Houston is if we shoot lights out from 3. They are just a team full of dogs. Obviously, not a fan of Sampson, but he finds the types of players I would love to have on my teams.
Hopefully the Illini show up and make a game of it.
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They’re definitely a tough gritty team and we’ll have to match their intensity. But with Mirk and Tomi, we give them some matchup problems they don’t typically see. It comes down to ball movement, cutting, and spacing against a trap-heavy defense. Having bigs who pass & shoot is a good recipe.
 
#63      
bdutts
One thing I absolutely am not looking forward to is hearing this for the next week: “Who’s house? Coogs house!” That’s their callout, much like we have I-L-L
 
#64      
RollChief
PleaseMakeABowlGame said:
I think this is an extremely difficult game. I’d honestly rather play any of the 1 seeds on a neutral than Houston in a road game.
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Disagree honestly, each of the top 4 teams have better wins on the road than Houston has in general. They’ve destroyed inferior opponents but if they beat us it’ll be there best win of the year by a healthy margin.
 
#68      
PleaseMakeABowlGame
RollChief said:
Disagree honestly, each of the top 4 teams have better wins on the road than Houston has in general. They’ve destroyed inferior opponents but if they beat us it’ll be there best win of the year by a healthy margin.
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Why do road wins matter they’re playing at home? Five minutes from campus.
 
#72      
PizzaHutParkingLot
Illiniguy13 said:
They’re definitely a tough gritty team and we’ll have to match their intensity. But with Mirk and Tomi, we give them some matchup problems they don’t typically see. It comes down to ball movement, cutting, and spacing against a trap-heavy defense. Having bigs who pass & shoot is a good recipe.
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Mike LaTulip likes how we match up with UH because the Illini cook trapping defenses
 
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#73      
illinidday89
CleverHandle1 said:
I would hope this wouldn't be the case. You really think this is the only chance Illinois has?
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I do. And I hate to say that, but these are exactly the types of teams we struggle with and this is one of those teams x10.

They literally had this same type of team a few years ago and handled us pretty easy.

Now saying that, I hope I'm insanely wrong.
 
#75      
IllinistrandedinHouston
OrangeBlue98 said:
Play defense like we did in the second half, and we have a real shot. Houston has the propensity to go really cold.

I know the game is in Houston, but this one isn’t at their on campus arena. It won’t be wildly pro-Houston.
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There are a LOT OF ILLINI ALUMNI IN HOUSTON! Oil companies need really good engineers you know.
 
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